Russia has also urged the top officials of the parties to the conflict to negotiate peaceful settlement in Moscow within the framework of the Mixed Monitoring Commission.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the first thing the commission has to do is to make several decisions binding upon both parties to the conflict: immediate ceasefire and prompt implementation of settlement provisions adopted at a meeting of the co-chairmen of the Mixed Monitoring Commission on June 2, 2004. At that meeting the Commission ruled that Georgia should withdraw its armed formations that had illegally entered South Ossetia and commit itself not to stage any posts in the conflict area without consent of the Commission.
Moscow said that the Standing Procedure on the Operational Principles of Military Contingents and Military Observer Groups, adopted by the Mixed Monitoring Commission on December 6, 1994 to help calm down the situation in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict area, should be fulfilled meticulously.
Under the procedure, the mixed peacekeeping force has a right to raise and maintain a tightened security regime in the conflict area if required. It shall also prevent armed groups and other non-controlled formations capable of destabilizing the situation from entering the security area.
"Only such moves can release tension in the conflict area and provide for resumption of talks," the Russian statement reads.
Meanwhile, on Saturday Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili called upon the Georgian armed forces to be ready for a major foreign invasion of the country.
He said in his speech before newly commissioned officers - graduates of the Georgian National Defense Academy: "We are in for a hard fight, though we will do our best to avoid it. But if a major foreign invasion begins, we have to be ready to repulse it."
"We want neither an armed conflict nor problems with our northern neighbor. However, should someone trigger an armed conflict against Georgia - Russia involved in an armed confrontation with Georgia is the last thing I want - we must be ready for anything," Mr. Saakashvili said.
He emphasized that everybody entering Georgia with a weapon on him would be terminated.
According to the Georgian president, he has good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and various Russian entities. However, he suspects, there are some forces in Russia that want the 1992 nightmare back (in 1992, as then Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia cancelled privileges South Ossetia used to have as Georgia's autonomous province, an ethnic conflict broke out in the area that brought Georgia on the verge of civil war).
Should this happen, Mr. Saakashvili said, the enemy will not face the Georgia of 1992 - Georgia "will be not like a palm, but like a fist."
According to the Georgian leader, South Ossetian armed formations have been attacking Georgian villages in South Ossetia since last night.
He said that Georgian Interior Ministry troops were ordered to do their best to avoid casualties among Ossetians.
Chief of Shida Kartli Georgian regional police department Alexander Sukhitashvili told RIA Novosti that four Georgian Interior Ministry troops had been wounded earlier on Saturday by gunfire near the Georgian village of Eredvi in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict area.
The territory controlled by Georgian peacekeepers, namely the villages of Eredvi and Ardvisi, had been receiving incoming fire since Friday night, he said.
Meanwhile, chairman of the information and press committee of South Ossetia Irina Gagloyeva told RIA Novosti that Saturday morning had seen about 90-min mortar fire near Priss Hills, without casualties on the South Ossetian side.
According to the South Ossetian official, Georgian units may have been reinforced by insurgent formations based in Pankisi Gorge (the Chechnya section of the Russian-Georgian border).
The military observations, she said, revealed that some of their adversaries pray several times a day like Moslems do. "We believe that these are insurgents based in Pankisi Gorge," Ms Gagloyeva said.
She emphasized that Georgia had also engaged irregular armed formations based in Western Georgia, so-called 'Forest Brothers,' to join an aggression against South Ossetia.
She added that volunteers from all over North Caucasus were arriving in South Ossetia to help the unrecognized republic defend itself.
Meanwhile, the Russian State Duma (the lower house of the Russian parliament) condemned Georgian actions in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict area, "oriented to destabilize the situation in South Ossetia." A relevant statement was adopted on Saturday "in the context of aggravating situation in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict area and stipulating for measures to be taken to protect the rights and legal interests of Russian citizens and compatriots living and residing in South Ossetia."
The deputies recalled that Ossetia as a unified subject had joined Russia on its own accord in 1774. At that point Ossetia was not separated into the Northern and Southern parts (South Ossetia is a former Georgian province, now a self-proclaimed independent republic, while North Ossetia is a constituent republic in the Russian Federation). The statement maintains that Ossetians are one people.
"Using such methods, the Georgian authorities roundly violate the Agreement on the principles of settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, signed in 1992 by the Russian and Georgian leaders," the Russian statement reads.
Russian legislators emphasize that violation of this document can let the conflict take a violent turn.
The legislators believe that the first thing to do is to resume the work of the Mixed Monitoring Commission as soon as possible, including its extraordinary field operations.
The State Duma's statement insulted the Georgian president. He described the document as "obviously prevocational."
"Imperial forces in the Russian Federation are inspiring an armed conflict in South Ossetia," Mr. Saakashvili said, "a conflict, if any, will not be a Georgia's internal conflict - it will be a conflict between Georgia and Russia. I want Russia to realize that."
At the same time, he said Georgia was ready to return to Russia munitions confiscated several days ago from Russian peacekeepers, but not in South Ossetia. He said the weapons should not enter the Georgian-Ossetian conflict area.
Mikhail Saakashvili also assigned the Georgian Interior Minister to establish a coordination center in the Georgian village of Eredvi, as the Georgian president put it, "to prevent the development of an armed conflict in the Tskhinvali region (the preferred Georgian name for South Ossetia)."
According to the Georgian leader, his Interior Minister will talk with South Ossetia and Russian authorities to prevent armed clashes.
Secretary of the Georgian National Security Council Gela Bezhuashvili is leaving Tbilisi for Moscow on Saturday to meet Secretary of Russia's Security Council Igor Ivanov, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said. He added that, according to his information, Russian Ambassador at Large Lev Mironov was to arrive in Tbilisi on a special order from the Russian President also on Saturday. According to the Georgian leader, these diplomatic efforts should help prevent the situation from unfolding into a military engagement.
Meanwhile, according to reliable information disclosed by the Information and Media Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, there are up to 3,000 armed men in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict area, who have arrived from Georgia and have nothing to do with the authorized peacekeeping operation.
"The presence of such a number of armed people in a sensitive area will be a strong destabilizing factor. As a result, there is sporadic gunfire here and there, with wounded on both sides," reads the statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also emphasized that the OSCE Mission in Georgia had been conspicuously reluctant to act in such volatile environment. "[The Mission] is apparently reluctant to take concrete steps to release tension between Tbilisi and Tskhinvali, and fails to give an unbiased assessment of the situation in the region and causes of aggravation of tension in South Ossetia," Russian diplomats wrote in the statement.
The statement concludes, "The spiral of tension has to be prevented from unfolding into major armed clashes."
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, to that end all armed formations not organic to the peacekeeping force should be withdrawn from the area, and attempts to stand in the way of the negotiation process represented by the Mixed Monitoring Commission should be dropped.
